Notebook: 1988

There is nowhere a
more intense life
than the one you are
living right now. If
you think so you are
buying into a Hollywood
or a bohemian scam.
Ideas are everywhere.
I would have trouble
getting along without a good
bookstore, on the
other hand...

I felt the effects,
short term and long-
term of events that
hadn't actually
happened. As this
capacity to
imagine such events
flourished, I felt more alive.

Style is as
much a state of
undress as it is
of dress. Letting down
my guard, I imagined
saying things to
people I would never
allow myself in real
life. In this fantasy, I always
hang up the
phone in a state
of intense satisfaction.
It is life, *not*
the imagination,
which is oblique
and mysterious.
(Truth of poetry: St John Perse).

The source of humor
is the tolerance
for paradox, and
this is gained
by increased participation
in acquiring knowledge
about anything, as
we reach the limit-
or saturation point-
this is intimately
connectede with the
balance between
satisfaction and
frustration. For
example: the necessity
that teachers and
students (hearers and
speakers) attack each
other- however
nimbly- is related
to the necessity
to acquire *playfullness*
in order to learn.
What Lorenz limited
to humor should be
extended to include
the capacity to
hurt and be hurt
and to reinvent
creativity in
*that* connectedness.

All sense organs
are also sexual
organs.

I guess I've
known for a long
time now that, in
the long run, I'm
for the poem not
for the book. Poems
seem to last longer
than books- (like songs).

Let's put it this
way: I've never
wanted to think of you
as confused, but I've
always known you were
a lonely man.

I've had to hide
my work from you
the way the mother
of a handicapped
child hides her child's
defect- inside part
of herself which is even
a mystery to herself.
Because she is protecting
something more valuable
than the truth.

Even freedom hnas
its price. But this
is true because price
is such a good parasite
that feeds on everything.
Freedom protects itself
in its constant attention
in watching for an
opening.

Freedom evades
something- right. But
this is because
it is advancing.
While evasion
contains a kind
of freedom it is
not generative of
freedom. Freedom
raises, so it scares.

Structure is strong.
This is why it seems
beautiful. But the
spark of beauty is
not in the structure.
It is in the particularity.

Where am I going?
I'm going back to
where every particle
came from. Why
do I come? The tendency
for particles to
come together.

Senses play with
each other, like children,
like birs.


People attach themselves
to things and to
ideals. Often the
two conflict. But
both committments are
strong.

The depths of
human tenacity are
inestimable. Is this
the most visible
similarity- in
personality- to our
immediate ancestors-
the apes?

Why do we
imagine that
readers have no
sense of touch in their
eyes? Reading is
*all* Braille.

Reader and
writer- no faith in
each other.Both
fear betrayal-
but the reader-
more, even though
the writer takes
most of the risk.

The final thought
of thought is
freedom from thought.